Adagio
by Lady Murasaki
Summary: A look at Heero's life post-war


How do you cope with a loss? How do you go on when you've lost your other half? I ask you, God, why do you not answer? The omniscient one, why do you not answer? I have spent all my life trying to understand you, God, yet I fail. Where are you, God? Answer me! Why did it have to be this way? Why....  
  
~*~  
  
// I don't know where to find you //  
  
Once upon a time there lived a boy who was all alone in the world. He had no friends and his only goal in life was to bring death and destruction to all around him. It wasn't as if the boy enjoyed the violence - he simply had no other choice. He built façade after façade around himself, each more fake than the ones before it. The boy hated his life, himself, and more than once the thought of ending it all crossed his mind. But he never could finalize his decision. He considered himself weak, but maybe, in fact, in this weakness he demonstrated his true strength. Who knows? The boy was intensely unhappy. It was as if some significant part of him were missing, leaving him unwhole. The boy was maybe too young to consciously realize this, he only knew that something important wasn't right. The war was raging on around him, and he moved with it like a clockwork toy, unfree and sad.   
  
All of this changed when I met him. Not right away, not for months that followed, but slowly I began to reclaim my tie with humanity. He could reach out and touch parts of me that I never knew existed. In him, I found my missing half. It was a while before I came to understand that I somehow did the same for him. We were like two sides of a coin; we completed each other; together, we were perfect.   
  
//...I don't know how to reach you...//  
  
How do you know when someone is your other half? You don't, at least consciously. But you feel it in your blood, in your bones - in your heart. What we had was something very few people can boast of. Our tie was special, unique. I know no words that can describe it. Friendship, you say? Not, it was more, much more than that. Love? Perhaps. Yes, I suppose we could have been called lovers - but without the physicality of it. We were lovers in the sense that we knew everything about one another without needing to say the words. We had achieved that fragile higher level of understanding when a touch, a glance, sound of footsteps conveys a lifetime. We were soul mates.   
  
No one would have predicted that we were destined for each other - much less you and I. Our first encounter took place across the barrel of a gun. Hardly many promising possibilities of a good relationship could come out of that meeting. Perhaps it was God's perverse way of demonstrating his sense of humor to make us come together again and again. I don't know exactly when it happened that I started to look forward to these chance encounters.  
  
//...I hear your voice in wind...//  
//...I feel you under my skin...//  
  
~*~  
  
Damn it! I didn't want it; I didn't seek it - neither of us did. But it was probably the starvation for real human contact that finally pushed us together. Hesitant at first, neither willing to tread these dangerous new waters recklessly, burned by all that we'd lost over the years. But we eventually learned to trust, partly because it hurt too much to be alone, to keep up the iron wall, any longer. I think it was that time in the OZ cell, that I looked into your eyes - really looked into them - and saw the loneliness that I felt reflected there. It was then that I realized that under all the masks, we were really the same - incomplete, aching, quivering, hurt. It was then that I first felt I was not alone any more.  
  
//...Within my heart and my soul...//  
  
It hurts so much to remember.  
  
//...I wait for you...//  
  
I've waited so long and, for a moment in time, I glimpsed heaven.  
  
//...Adagio...//  
  
A strong shoulder to lean onto, a gentle hug to chase away the nightmares. Oh, yes - the nightmares; we both had them, you and I did. Each of us haunted by his own demons - or were those demons really the same?   
  
//...All of these nights without you...//  
//...All of my dreams surround you...//  
  
I remember so vividly that one time after a particularly bloody mission. I woke up screaming wildly and you slapped me to knock a sense of reality back into me. We stared at each other and I am not really sure how or when your arms found their way around my shoulders but it felt so - right. You held me, just held me, and there were no more nightmares that night. Falling asleep in your arms, your soft breath on my feverish skin, my last thought was that I was safe with you. It was like unlocking the door to let the fresh air in.  
  
//...I see and I touch your face...//  
//...I fall into your embrace...//  
  
I miss you, you know.   
  
//...When the time is right, I know...//   
//...You'll be in my arms...//  
//...Adagio...//  
  
~*~  
  
//...I close my eyes and I find a way...//  
  
Maybe God sent me you because He wanted to teach me to believe. Sometimes I wonder. You, with your disillusionment and I with my nihilism - we made for an unlikely pair of missionaries. That's probably why we made perfect teachers for each other. I don't know how to explain it, but in his frustration, each of us taught the other the most valuable lessons on faith.   
  
//...There is no need to pray...//  
  
After I got to know you, I no longer felt like a lost puppy. I knew there was someone out there, like me, trying to overcome similar emotional baggage. The knowledge kept me going. It keeps me going still.  
  
//...I've walked so far...//  
//...I've fought so hard...//  
  
You understood me so well; there was no need for words. No words could have expressed the things I felt, anyway.  
  
//...Nothing more to explain...//  
  
I hate God for making me suffer so. I thank Him too, for allowing me a brief flash of normalcy. I need you back, so I can fully regain my humanity.  
  
//...I know all that remains...//  
  
Memories of you are all that I have left, bittersweet fragments that I would give anything to relive time and time again. I will wait for you to return, so that we can make up for the time we lost.  
  
//...Is a piano that plays...//  
  
~*~  
  
//...If you know where to find me...//  
  
I don't know whether anyone will understand the hell I went through. I ranted and raved; I refused to believe it. It was a simple, easy mission; it had to have been. You had left for a week or two, and you were coming back. You couldn't just disappear - could you? No God could be that cruel - could He?   
  
//...If you know how to reach me...//  
  
I ranted and raved, and I cursed God. I did not, could not, face the reality. Like a shooting star, you showed up in my life, and left again, but I could not let go.  
  
//...Before this light fades away...//  
  
It took me a very long time to come to grips with what happened. But deep inside, I kept the faith. Deep inside, I knew I'd see you again. Somehow, someday - you would be coming back. The surety of that knowledge kept me sane.  
  
//...Before I run out of faith...//  
  
It took me even longer to realize I loved you.  
  
//...Be the only man to say...//  
  
I loved you, even though I didn't really know what love was. It was the sensation of your slightly callused hand on my skin, your soft breath against my back. The way you looked, the way you spoke, the way you carried yourself, and the courage you possessed. The way you made the nightmares go away. The way you soothed my fears and made me feel safe. That is what love was to me - at least then. Maybe in a way, it still is. I never got to tell you.   
  
//...That you'll hear my heart...//  
  
I have gathered up the courage to tell you now. I am ready.   
  
//...That you give your life...//  
  
~*~  
  
I keep thinking about the strange twists that life presents us with. The peculiar ways in which we get to know ourselves. But most of all, I keep thinking about that time when you were called away on a mission, leaving me to wait for your return.  
  
//...Forever you'll stay...//  
  
I had just gotten back from a mission; he was between his. We were looking forward to some quiet down time when an email came through for him. A simple recon run, he assured me - in and out. The target was a small island near Madagascar. Both of us accepted the inevitable - a mission is a mission and there are no breaks in a job like ours. That night, we sat on the roof of the cabin that served as our current safehouse. It was late, he had to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning, but neither of us was willing to give up the night. So we sat, in companionable silence, watching the stars. Late August is the time for meteor showers and every once in a while a shooting star would streak across the sky, leaving a momentary fiery trail in its wake.  
  
"Beautiful, isn't it?" He said quietly, after a particularly bright meteor drew a line in the darkness. I nodded and, glancing across at him, I saw the stars shining in his eyes.  
  
//...Don't let this light fade away...//  
  
He was moving around the room quietly, packing his few belongings. He probably tried not to wake me, but I couldn't sleep anyway. He waved at me and opened the door to leave when I called out his name. He turned around, puzzled expression on his face.  
  
"Be careful."  
  
"Always."  
  
//...No No No No No...//  
  
And he was gone.  
  
~*~  
  
Every year, I come to the place where that cabin used to be. It's not there any longer, but the spirit of things past still lingers. The skies are still studded with stars, and meteor showers still amaze me with their ephemeral beauty. I wait for him. I know that he'll come, that he'll keep his promise. Every year, I come back and spend two weeks - waiting. I am a patient man and he always keeps his promises. I walk over to the beach and sit on the sand and watch the tide roll in and the stars fall into the ocean. When I leave, I feel as though I have learned something about myself; I feel renewed. I carry away with me a part of him that I know will sustain me until the time comes next year to come back yet again. Come back and wait.  
  
//...Don't let me run out of faith...//   
  
~*~  
  
I sit on the beach. This year, I felt too ill to travel all the way to the cabin. I suppose the stress of the past decades is finally starting to catch up to me. So I elected to come out and watch the ocean here instead. It reminds me of him - ever changing and elusive, yet strangely reassuring at the same time. Night settles in slowly and yet I don't want to leave. I am tired and yet I have a strange sense of anticipation. So I linger. No one will miss me in the tumult of celebrations that are happening all over the city. After all, today marks the end of war that stretched out over nearly half a century. Today, an agreement on disarmament of both sides had been signed. I smile up at the stars, at the sky.  
  
"Did you hear? We have finally accomplished our goal. We'll have peace..."  
  
And the stars wink at me and smile their sad little smile, just like he did when I saw him last.  
  
The waves are coming in - full tide is not very far away. I decide I'll leave in a moment when a silhouette emerges from the darkness. My heart beating wildly, I watch as he approaches and sits down beside me. Together, we gaze upon the expanse of sky and water.  
  
"I was wondering whether you'd show up."  
  
"Sorry it took so long... Thanks for waiting."  
  
"I knew you'd keep your promise," I tell him.  
  
//...Be the only man to say...//  
  
Everything is as it should be now. I haven't waited in vain - he kept his word. Now I can go home, finally at peace.  
  
"How long can you stay?"  
  
//...That you believe, make me believe...//   
  
"As long as you want me to."  
  
//...You won't let go...//  
  
I smile and nod. I'll get up in a moment, but for now, I will rest for just a little bit. And so, I lean my head against his shoulder and we sit together in silence, watching the tide roll in, the waves almost touching my feet now. Everything is as it should be.  
  
//...Adagio...//  
  
  



End file.
